I Hart Space! - Chapter 2: Written in the Stars, Part IV

Welcome back to yet another part of chapter 2 of I Hart Space! Let's head back to the main house . . .

Whew! We are getting really close to the end, you guys. Just this one and one more and then I'll pass it off to Kristina and you won't have to hear me ramble for one whole generation. ;) Anyway, now that we caught up with the spares in the last post, let's see what's going on back at the Hart house . . .

Ceres is now stargazing with a random sim. In this case, it's their neighbor, Alice Spencer-Kim. Ceres is getting very close to meeting her Social Butterfly aspiration. She just needs a few more adult and kid friends.

Eris is being helped with homework by Galaxy, who is cranky like she always is when dealing with Eris.

And Collin and Andromeda work on Collin's garden while baby Pluto sleeps. This was Collin's herbalism garden, but now that he's working, it's so much extra work to keep up that sometimes Andromeda helps out when she's not too tired from her job and dealing with the kids. It can be really hard to balance everything in a legacy lifestyle sometimes.

The next day, I send Eris and Ceres to the park to complete diametrically-opposed goals. Eris has wanted to make an enemy forever and rerolls that whim even if I cancel it, so I finally locked it and decided to acquiesce. Meanwhile, Ceres is this close to finishing Social Butterfly but no children ever walk by the house.

Ceres is soon entertaining two children, one teen, and one adult (Alice again) with her witty banter. Making friends is never hard for Ceres. Everyone who meets her loves her instantly, and it's just a matter of spamming socials once they're hooked.

Eris keeps an eye out for the right person to make an enemy with. I've never tried this before in Sims 4, so I have no idea how easy or hard it will be, but I was willing to find out. Then, finally, Eris spots a victim.

"Hmm . . . you must be tired. Your uncomfortable moodlet is wafting off you in waves like a sweet scent."
"Are you sure you aren't confusing that with the flowers behind you?"
"You have a great sense of smell. Are you sure your mother isn't a llama?"
"That reminds me of a great funny story!"

It was . . . actually not that hard but kind of entertaining because every time Eris took a break from implying Alice's mother was a llama (yes, that is an interaction) or yelling at her, Alice would try to redirect the conversation in a friendly manner. She stuck around no matter how much malice Eris slung her way.

And finally they hate each other enough for Eris to "declare an enemy," all without ever getting up off the bench. Alice is quite affronted, but seemingly unable to leave by her own will, so Eris lets her go home after that. Wow, all that for 50 happiness points, but she did get a "new enemy" happy moodlet afterwards, lol.

While all that was going on, and right as it is starting to get dark, Ceres makes friends with the final child she needs for her aspiration, earning her the Socially Gifted trait. Yay Ceres! Altogether, it was a very fruitful trip to the park.

Back home, Pluto has finally grown up too! Let's take a look.

Well. Okay. Active is definitely from the Hart side of the family, and I guess he wants to find a soulmate but definitely not procreate. Since he's not in jeopardy of being heir, that shouldn't be too hard. He looks quite a bit like Eris in some ways, but does share some features with Ceres too. Time for that comparison pic I promised previously.

So here's the three kids. Pluto is in his pjs so you can see his face better without his glasses. Ceres has the most unique face, but they all look related. I'm really pleased with the kids this generation.

Ceres then gives a hug to his mother because this is the Hart family, after all.

See what I mean? Hugs. All the time hugs. Hugs everywhere. It's kind of their signature.

Ceres is now working on the Whiz Kid aspiration, and amazingly, she is the first to cheat at chess. This had me giggling mightily, but it's a good thing Eris didn't catch her.

While Ceres works on playing her chess games, Eris keeps chipping away at the Rambunctious Scamp aspiration by typing.

Pluto, who also has Rambunctious Scamp, is so good at playing on the spaceship that he can do it with his eyes closed. Or something.

Look how much happier Galaxy is when she helps Ceres with homework! I am so convinced that on some meta level, Galaxy knows exactly what her granddaughters are like and approves of one more than the other. She does love them both equally, though, because that's just how grandmothers are.

Open your eyes, Pluto! He's now taken to doing his homework with his eyes closed. Unlike his sisters, he never gets help with his homework since I'm not as worried about his accomplishments. He did still eventually make an A in grade school, though, so good for him.

Pluto doing homework by the pool is a magnetic draw for everyone that needs to sit down, and we soon get treated to this little vignette. Eris is making fun of Pluto, who is not having it, Galaxy looks like she wants to strangle Eris, and Ceres is doing her best to remain impartial.

Closeup for maximum hilarity. I blame this moment for all of Pluto's later personality faults. Eris broke something in him with her teasing.

While Collin is at work, it is finally time for Andromeda's adult birthday. Pregnancy really is a youth potion in Sims 4. Everyone is there to celebrate.

Andromeda looks great, because she is made of awesome. This sim is just undiluted superiority. She's that great. I love her.

The next day after school, the three kids pop over to the spares' household to meet their cousins, Haumea and Makemake.

"I'm in hell. I laid down for a nap and I must have died in my sleep, because when I woke up I was surrounded by loud small people. I'm going back to sleep."

And he did!

Perhaps that was a wise move, because Pluto, for no apparent reason, starts doing rude introductions to all the adults. What the hell, Pluto? Just because your sister was mean to you once doesn't mean you need to emulate her. He managed to get a fairly negative relationship with Orion before I directed him to do other things.

At the same time, Haumea and Ceres head out to the workout room for a little dancing and socializing.

Before long, it's a full-on Hart Children Dance Party.

Make that a Hart Children and Travis Dance Party. Seems like a legit way to spend your time. No wonder he gets on so well with Aries.

Once back home, Eris and Pluto work on their shared aspiration. It is taking forever for Eris to finish this one compared to how quickly Ceres shredded through hers.

Collin - who gained the Big Happy Family aspiration after completing Outdoor Enthusiast - wants to read to a child for 2 hours and Ceres wants to be read to for 2 hours. What a happy coincidence!

Later, with the kids safely tucked into bed, Andromeda and Collin keep the magic alive by skinny dipping in the new hot tub. Racy stuff.

Galaxy has picked up the unfortunate new habit of "trolling teh forums" when she has free time. I'm not sure that's the best activity for a otherwise sweet sim, but from now on, when I encounter particularly odious trolls, I'm going to assume they're crotchety grandmothers.

"Hey, when you're 150, you can do what you want, too."

Galaxy also spends quite a bit of her free time swimming laps or working out. Amazingly, she never gets 'dangerously tired.' This woman is invincible.

Unless, of course, there are small children that she doesn't know about. That's her weakness. Haumea came home from school with Ceres, so I sent Galaxy out to meet her granddaughter, but she was instantly popping up a "stranger danger" moodlet and doing ballet poses apparently. Not really a people person, is she?

Eris finally finishes her aspiration with a long afternoon of gaming, which I somehow did not realize before now contributes to the motor skill.

Her new aspiration is Artistic Prodigy. If she and Ceres can finish their second aspirations, they'll have covered all of the childhood aspirations between them. However, I am a bit surprised that she's drawing a not-very-evil picture.

"That's not a rainbow. Those are lasers raining down on a city while the sun goes supernova and a tidal wave full of a poisonous green algae bloom swamps the land. Suffering abounds."

Oh.

Ceres got someone else to finish reading to her while Collin was at work, so Eris gets to be read to for Collin to finish that level of his aspiration. He eventually wound up at a stage where he still needed to have a child get married, which won't happen on my computer, and have a child with 3 friends. Ceres has approximately eleventy-thousand friends, at least 3 of which she made after Collin reached that stage, but it refused to register. I hope it will work on Kristina's computer.

Jorge is such a weird ghost. He pretty much never haunts, but he pops up occasionally at odd times. He showed up during the day when Galaxy earned her final promotion, and he similarly came out of his urn when I had gone to manage worlds to plop down a spa in the neighborhood. Galaxy immediately rushed over to declare her everlasting love or whatever that interaction is called, and Jorge was receptive. He must be getting impatient waiting for his possibly-immortal wife to join him. Anyway, it's time for a girls' day out at the spa!

Relaxing, right? Only I forgot that Galaxy hates everyone except her immediate relations, so it was torture for her pretty much the whole time. Even with a positive massage moodlet she was still tense.

After becoming embarrassed by walking in on someone in the mud bath, she settles in for a soak herself and falls asleep right there in the bath. You wouldn't think going to a spa of all places would not be so rough on someone, but that's Galaxy for you.

Meanwhile, Andromeda takes a yoga class and adds a little wellness skill to her already impressive resume.

"Kay. So. You want me to do yoga, but there are strangers here, yes? I'm suffering. Please let an old woman go home. It's the humane thing to do."

Well, when you put it that way.

Back home, it's photo time. I wanted to get some shots of the kids before Eris grows up, which is due to happen soon.

Here's our main photo wall, with the generation 1 and 2 pictures and a shot of the two girls that could potentially be the generation 3 heiress.

Off to the side are individual shots of the girls and group shots with Pluto, because I didn't want to leave him out totally. I still wish I could choose from different poses or at least refresh them like you can do when saving families in the gallery.

The entire family works hard on their aspirations and/or jobs, except where is Galaxy?

Why, just doing whatever the hell she wants.

"Hey, when you're 165 . . ."

Yeah, yeah, we know.

With a final flourish of glue and macaroni, Eris finishes her second aspiration. She is now both Physically and Creatively Gifted.

Just in time too, because it looks like it's someone's birthday.

"I baked her a black cake to match her black, black heart."

They had an entire party, but no one but the family bothered to show up for the cake part. Andromeda invited all her family and her couple of friends, and Ceres invited Makemake and Haumea over since Andromeda doesn't know them as well.

Eris. Eris. You're going to miss the candles if you blow on the corner of the counter, you know. Poor form.

Still, she grew up just the same and immediately took a selfie to document her questionable fashion choices.

See? That is one atrocious outfit. This is the closest I got to a picture that looked like there was an actual party going on. The party was meant to be in the awesome, decked-out party basement and I had even gone to the trouble of putting the motion gaming rig in inventory and locking the doors to the rooms with computers, but I still couldn't get all the guests down there.

Still, the party was successful in growing Eris up and earning a gold medal, which is all it really had to do. Galaxy even hung out with Gavin for a little while despite not knowing him. I attribute that to Ceres' social magic. It's contagious!

"Hey, Aries."
"Hey, sis! Great party. I'm going to go hang out with some real friends now, though."
"Um . . . ok. Thanks for the notification."
"Your twin is weird."
"You don't know the half of it, Cassandra."

"Oh, palm tree, you're the only one you truly understands me . . . yes . . . yes . . . no. Yeah, I'm glad we had this talk too."

After the party, everyone sets to cleaning up the cake plates and drink glasses, which are all over the house, and Ceres does her homework for the night. I'm not sure that's the best place for a kid to be doing her homework, though, and Andromeda seems to agree with me. The bartender was having such a great time that she just keep serving drinks for a while after the party ended, but she eventually went home, thank goodness.

Upstairs, Pluto does his homework with no help and Eris withstands the stink-eye from Galaxy while she assists her with the homework.

Then Pluto starts in on his sister. I guess this is his payback for that one comment out on the patio? I don't know, but he suddenly acted like he had been bitten by the mean bug. Of course, you do not insult evil sims and not expect them to retaliate, so Eris yelled right back at him. They managed to go from friends to acquaintances in one conversation while they worked on homework.

Once Eris and Pluto were done tanking their relationship, I finally sent Eris to the mirror. Here is the result. She looks suitably dark and devious to me. She's also quite beautiful.

I tried to pick an outfit that was reminiscent of what she wore as a child, because I liked the lime green and the boots on her so well. So that's Eris's makeover.

Eris's teen trait is music lover, so she cranks out three points of guitar skill that same night so she can work on getting to an A in high school the next day. She enjoys music more because of this trait, but the real delight, at least to me, is that she can use "mock music taste" as a mean interaction.

And we'll end with Andromeda in the most ridiculous random work outfit ever. She's on level 4 of the tech guru career and needs one more promotion to finish the Computer Whiz aspiration. It's hard to see, but besides the hat and glasses, she's also got earrings, a necklace, and two bracelets. Didn't anyone ever tell her Coco Chanel's rule for going out?

Anyway, check back next time to see our other potential heiress, Ceres, grow up, and see some comparison between the two. Pluto will also grow up next time, marking the end of my turn, and then I'll be handing the family back to Kristina. We do have a few more matters to cover before that happens, though, so be sure to check back. Also, don't forget to visit us at SiMania! <3